C3: The CHORD COUSIN Collaboration

Dear attendees of the CS-COUSIN and COMFA joint meeting,

C3: The CHORD COUSIN Collaboration

Last Saturday, the Consortium for Harmonizing Outcomes Research in Dermatology (CHORD) and the Cochrane Skin - Core Outcome Set Initiative (CS-COUSIN) agreed to merge into a single, international, multistakeholder organization, named "C3: The CHORD COUSIN Collaboration."  By the beginning of 2022, C3 will replace CHORD and CS-COUSIN. 

C3s vision is the improved health of patients through robust assessment of interventions for skin conditions. We will focus on supporting the development and implementation of high quality COS for clinical trials, observational research, and practice in dermatology and related areas, and we will be principled on inclusiveness with respect to participants and stakeholders. 

We are all very excited about this development and would like to invite you to participate in this new organization and work with us to spread the idea of harmonized, meaningful, high quality outcomes and core outcome sets. We are working hard on the organizational and operational issues involved in the official and formal merger of CS-COUSIN and CHORD into C3, which is anticipated to be complete by year’s end.

We will be reaching out individually to each COS group formerly affiliated with COUSIN or CHORD to facilitate their transition to C3.  We also anticipate that to achieve its objectives, the C3 umbrella group will require committees and working groups comprised of COS experts like yourself. Please email Lauren Cote, C3 Executive Administrator at lcote@northwell.edu if you would like to be kept up to date regarding these developments and/or if you would like to get involved in the new organization.

Let us all together make dermatology the use case for the COS concept to deliver better research and better patient care!

We are looking forward to hearing from you!

Jochen Schmitt, Amit Garg, Murad Alam, John Ingram, Phyllis Spuls and Gregor Jemec, on behalf of C3